


Social Discomforts

by Calaphrass (SexyStripedTie)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AKA, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Bc of Dean's angst and personal fears, But Dean listen Sam loves you like nobody's business, Dean and Mental Health Issues, Dean-Centric, Even if you guys sometimes suck at communicating, Gen, POV Dean Winchester, Social Anxiety, Unreliable Narrator, YOU'LL BE ALL RIGHT DEAN, you'll be okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-25
Updated: 2017-04-25
Packaged: 2018-10-23 20:16:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10726440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SexyStripedTie/pseuds/Calaphrass
Summary: Dean contemplates his relationship with a specific type of anxiety.





	Social Discomforts

**Author's Note:**

> A ficlet about Dean that I wrote a while ago but never posted. Thanks for reading! :-)

Dean loves people. Loves _interacting_ with them. But here's the thing: he’s felt so wrong and broken and twisted and messed up for _so long_ that he’s terrified of that coming out somehow, terrified of accidentally showing people that side of himself.

With _Sam_ , it’s easy. Talking, laughing, pranking, loving – maybe it’s the fact that they’ve lived in each other’s pockets their whole lives, maybe it’s just that he knows Sam so well, knows his habits, what he likes, how he thinks – but somehow none of the fear makes its way to the surface when he’s with him.

But with _other_ people? He hoards masks just to survive. It’s easy, at first, to slip behind facades, so easy he doesn’t even notice he does it, because of course he’s looked up to dad his whole life and of course loving, near-worshipful sons like him would try to map out all of their father’s mannerisms, would try to _become_ him to an extent. That’s just how growing up works.

But as the years go by, it gets harder. It gets harder when Sam starts asking questions. It gets harder when Sam leaves him for Stanford. It gets harder whenever he starts getting close to someone, because sooner or later, they'll _know_ him, and then he knows – he _knows_ – it’ll all fall apart (because it’d already happened once; why wouldn’t it happen again?).

It gets harder when dad dies, and he no longer has someone else’s footsteps to walk in. He lost a father, that day, but he also lost a sense of purpose. Because, with dad gone, who the hell is he supposed to be? _Himself_?

It gets harder when he really starts _feeling_ the fear – _physically_ feeling it, almost, like a paralysis that freezes him to the spot, that sticks words and entire sentences to the inside of his throat, that strips him of every quip and pick-up line and clever joke he knows and starts infecting him around _Sam_ , even, eventually, because he thought Sam and him had something amazing, even after Stanford, because Sam had come _back_ , hadn’t he? But Sam, it turns out – if his actions were anything to go by – had never really loved Dean like Dean loved him.

Second guessing every action, every word that comes out of his mouth starts to become second-nature to him after that, and it’s not him being thoughtful, or kind, or considerate, it’s a _paranoia_. He can’t let go, can’t just _be_ , he can’t laugh effortlessly or speak without doubting every bit of it beforehand because _what if it backfires somehow_. What if he says something wrong.

What if Sam finally decides he’s not worth it.

Because it’d happened once before. Why the hell wouldn’t it happen again?

**Author's Note:**

> Check out the rest of my stuff over at [my Tumblr](https://sexystripedtie.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
